Bob Lavezzari clears mud from his street March 1 in Asuza, Calif., in a neighborhood threatened by a possible mudslide below a burned hillside after heavy rain. / David McNew, Getty Images

by Larry Copeland, USA TODAY

by Larry Copeland, USA TODAY

Most of the rain has ended in Southern California after a storm system brought much-needed relief to the parched state. Evacuation orders were lifted for hundreds of homes in the Los Angeles County foothills where drought-related wildfires have destroyed vegetation that protects against wildfires.

The region "will have a few showers for another day but nothing like what they saw over the past three days," said Accuweather meteorologist Dan DePodwin. "Downtown Los Angeles picked up more rain since Thursday than they had all of last year. Since Thursday, they've had 4.29 inches of rain; last year, they had 3.6 inches."

Bill Patzert, a climatologist with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Canada Flintridge, told the Los Angeles Times that the storm, the largest in Southern California since December 2010, helped end an unusually long wildfire season and eased the state's three-year drought. He said it would bring the Los Angeles region to about half its normal rainfall for the season; it had started the week at just 10% of normal.

"It did put a dent in the drought, but they need a whole lot more rain to really break the drought," DePodwin said. "Unfortunately, it looks like the next two weeks or so will turn dry again."

About 1,200 houses in the adjacent cities of Azusa and Glendora and in nearby Monrovia were under evacuation orders because of the possibility of destructive flows from the San Gabriel Mountains. But the orders were lifted late Saturday and early Sunday.